From the "People" Archives:

by Brandon Judell

One of the high spots of this year's New York Film Festival, is Gaspar Noe's astoundingly written and realized "I Stand Alone." Think Celine with a splattering of Bukowski. Godard as re-configured by David Lynch. On the other hand, don't think. Just experience. The film is a dark look at a white French misanthropic butcher who's certain all the miseries in his life would dematerialize if Arabs, blacks and gays would be massacred and if women once again became malleable as the Lord meant them to be. Although Noe's feature debut has not yet been picked up for US distribution, Strand Releasing has showed "strong interest" in the film, along with a number of other distributors.

Amazingly, this is not the most notorious film Mr. Noe has helmed. If you're born under a lucky star, you'll come across his safe sex short on heterosexual sodomy commissioned by the French government and sponsored by such companies as Kodak. If this were ever broadcast on American TV, Jesse Helms would turn in his grave even before his death.

indieWIRE caught up with this delectable director at the Montreal World Film Festival, and our conversation went sort of like this:

indieWIRE: Has "I Stand Alone" already opened in France?

Gaspar Noe: No, the end of the year. It was made over 4 years with absolutely no money because it was refused all around in France. People said, "Come back with a real film. Not with this. Now do a movie with actors and with a real script." And it's funny finally because all my friends who were directing movies under much more normal conditions were making fun of me. "What are you doing? Why don't you make a normal movie?" I'm happy that I finished it. We almost went bankrupt in the middle of the production. I'm happy that I went all the way through and now it's complete.

iW: This is one of the best written scripts I've ever heard. Are you a writer? (Noe mistakes "writer" for "reader.")

Noe: No, not at all.

iW: But the screenplay . . .

Noe: I don't read much. I think I read two novels every year and that's all.

iW: But no one coming away from your film could say less than that you're a brilliant writer. If your screenplay came out in book form, people would buy it and be blown away.

Noe: A lot of people tell me that I should. Even if it's just a screenplay and not a novelized version of the screenplay. They say that I should publish it.

iW: Do you know the works of R. Crumb?

Noe: I'm a big, big fan of R. Crumb. In the beginning I wanted to become a comic book writer.

iW: R. Crumb lives in France. Have you met him?

Noe: Never.

iW: Would one say the purpose of your film is to expose the in-depth, emotional life of a bigoted Frenchman who feels he's losing his footing in his own country and times?

Noe: It could be set in Scotland, in New York or anywhere else. It's just that the background is France of today. But it's more the movie about a man and his moral and existentialist problems. There's something that you have in France today that you don't really have in Brazil or in other countries. It's like .... There's some kind of selfishness that you only find in Europe.

iW: We've always had a picture of a Frenchman as a white chap with a beret whose family has lived for centuries in France. Now there are so many minorities there: blacks, Arabs, gays. A minority member who sees your film will no doubt exclaim, "Oh, my God! This is whom we're dealing with. This is the only film to ever capture the inner workings of a person like this."

Noe: In France, it's weird because the minorities don't behave as minorities as they do in North America. It's just like they want to be part of the whole thing. Also in France, you have a very odd thing. For example, some people tell you, "Oh, this guy is French and that guy is Jewish. It's like you cannot be Jewish and French at the same time. If a guy is black, they wouldn't say he is French. They'd say he's black. When they say "French," it means that a man's white, and his grandparents were French.

iW: Moving on to inspiration . . .

Noe: There was one movie that really inspired this one: "Straw Dogs." You know the rape scene in "Straw Dogs" was so powerful. That was the only time I ever walked out of a theater because I was so scared. There's another film called "Angst" or "Fear" which in France was called "Schizophrenia" but it was banned theatrically. It's got an X-rating so it never came out. It could maybe come out today. It's Austrian. One of the masterpieces of the decade. The director never did another movie though. He had too many debts so he stopped directing.

iW: Now you personally, do you love life or do you see misery everywhere?

Noe: No, no, no, no. Of course, I like life. I tell a terrible story but you can see I am having fun with life because the style of the movie is very joyful.

iW: It's a black comedy.

Noe: Most people only see the black aspect and not the humor in it. It all depends on your perception of life. If it's too close to your personal perception of life you cannot the see the humor. If it's far from your perception of life, you can see it. Sometimes depressive people don't react very well to "I Stand Alone."